» Mystery Shopping Survey

Warning: gzinflate() [function.gzinflate]: data error in /home/secretsh/public_html/wp-includes/http.php on line 1787

When you decide to run a mystery shopping survey for evaluation of your business, you are not going to reap just one benefit from this process. The data collected from these undercover shopping assignments can have multiple advantages, depending on how you use the information. Running these assessments on a regular basis is a way to keep an eye on the operations in general and customer service aspect of your business in particular.

An Impartial Eye

Using a mystery shopping survey is important, because it gives you an honest and impartial assessment. Many other surveys and research methods have failed to provide desired results because they cannot harvest enough data or the data is biased or compromised. This kind of fudged data is not useful, since one cannot make sound assessments based on these kinds of surveys. Apart from that, data harvesting needs to be thorough and honest. Seemingly, small and insignificant details could make a huge difference to the overall assessment. Appointing a professional and experienced shopper for your survey can make a whole lot of difference.

A shopper, who has proper training and practical experience, can make a world of a difference to a mystery shopping survey . An amateur, runs the risk of missing little things like, products kept in the wrong area. Apart from this, they may get distracted, this can often happen during retail or a restaurant assignment. Some people also tend to become biased in their judgments this is very risky, since it will affect the kind of data that is harvested. The mystery shopper needs to know how to report everything effectively. Every detail should be noted as accurately as possible, the more thorough and accurate the feedback, the more useful it will be to you. Last but definitely not the least a shopper should never be detected. If other employees find out that a hidden shopper is in the premises, it will greatly affect the data that is collected. It is imperative that a hidden shopper be as inconspicuous as possible when executing an assignment.

How Is It Helpful

A shopping survey can benefit your business in a number of ways. You will get an honest and clear idea of what a customer experiences during a visit to your store. These assignments will cover all details, ranging from cleanliness of the store to how helpful the staff was. You can also run these assessments for specific situations, like returning merchandise. You can also research your stores website, security systems and help lines by using hidden shopping methods.

Many businesses also use mystery shopping survey to find out how their employees really work on the job. This has proven to be especially helpful in finding out who is really pulling their weight and who is just slacking off. Apart from finding about employee performance and commitment, you can also get a clear idea of whether certain employees would do better in some other department. Industries such as, hotels, banks and hospitals run anonymous shopping assessments on a regular basis to find out what is working well and what needs to be changed in their business operations.  Apart from that, many businesses also run assessments on their competitor establishments to see what their strengths and weaknesses are. The truth is that, a hidden shopping survey can help your business in a number of ways.

Tweet This Post 

Warning: gzinflate() [function.gzinflate]: data error in /home/secretsh/public_html/wp-includes/http.php on line 1787

It needs no introduction to say that mystery shopping survey has been found to be the best way of self assessment of a company involved in direct customer interaction. The many types of surveys used to find the state of customer satisfaction have proved their utility and so has special shopping. Once used widely in the retail sector this method is now being used extensively in all possible businesses like automotive industry, self storage industry, catering business and also financial services. Special shopping supplements all other surveys and monitors the service levels of a company.

In a mystery shopping survey , the special shoppers maintain anonymity while shopping at an establishment. The shopper is entrusted to evaluate the employees through direct interaction either in person or over the telephone or both. This not only measures the service quality of the establishment but also helps in comparison with the other establishments engaged in similar exercises. This method is specially suited to companies having multiple outlets or chains. They can evaluate the impact of locations as well as the local response to the company guidelines. The surveys are designed specifically for each company and the parameters can range from a few to many as per the requirement of the company engaging the special shopping survey agencies. Some companies even add cleanliness and presentation of the employees to the list of objects under survey. The findings are made known to the employees for them to improve and are often used to design training programs for them.

For mystery shopping survey to be fully effective its findings should be evaluated together with other forms of surveys. Since the company has to deal with various sections ranging from its employees, distributors and ultimately the end users in the form of customers, the views of each of these sections should be surveyed to get the maximum benefit of each. A preliminary survey of the customer views may be made to form the basis of special shopping survey. This will help to incorporate and verify the areas that the customers are most concerned about. Generally it has been found that a good behavior of the staff and a gentle manner can do magic. A solid knowledge of the products and the ways to use them are often found helpful by the customers. So these two factors should always be part of the mystery shopping survey questionnaire.

Sometimes the whole method of survey is resented by the employees as they consider it spying on them to find their faults. They complain that these methods are more interested in catching them on the wrong foot rather than helping them to fulfill their duties. So it should be made a point that, like identifying the rotten tomatoes it should also aim at identifying the performers and rewarding them to encourage them. It can have a positive effect and more and more employees might get encouraged to reap the same reward if not more. To remove any doubts and fears in the minds of the staff and to let them work normally, it should be ethical not to name the people except those who are performing exceptionally and deserve special mention. The method not only utilizes the service of the outsiders but also sends the staff members to do special shopping at other outlets to find out firsthand what it feels to be on the other side of the counter. Mystery shopping survey is a learning process and many times this has proved to be effective too.

Secret Shopping

Tweet This Post